Instant messaging (“IM”) between children is very popular today. Although IM can be a great vehicle for children to establish and maintain friendships, it also puts children at risk for exposure to bad influences and even electronic predators. Because the communication is electronic in nature, it is easy for people to pretend to be who they are not, and very hard for parents to keep track of with whom their children are communicating.
Online-based parental control systems exist today. A key aspect of online parental control is the ability for parents to control with whom a child communicates online. Such systems enable parents to require that children receive permission to add friends to the list of parties with whom they can communicate. Unfortunately, even with such commercially available online-based parental control systems, the only mechanism parents have for actually determining the true identities of their child's IM buddies is to ask their child. The response of children is not reliable in this context, as children can be dishonest or themselves the victims of other's dishonesty. Without being able to determine with whom their children are really requesting permission to communicate, the power to approve or deny the requests is not sufficient. A substantive mechanism to verify the identity behind an IM alias before a child is granted permission to communicate would be desirable.
The related Parental Verification Application discloses methodology according to which an online-based parental control system is used to verify the identity of children and their parents, based on children's instant messaging aliases. This way, a child's instant messaging buddies can be limited to children whose parents have been securely identified. More specifically, the online-based parental control system maintains a plurality of verified parental accounts, each of which includes the identity of the parents and their children, including the children's instant messaging aliases. When a first child wishes to electronically communicate with a second child, the first child makes a request which includes the second child's instant messaging alias. The system searches the plurality of parental accounts for one containing the second child's alias. If the alias is not found, instant messaging between the children is not allowed. If a parental account containing the alias is found, an identity verification request is transmitted to the parents of the second child. The identity verification request discloses the identity of the first child's parents, and requests reciprocal verification of the identity of the parents of the second child. Only if the second child's parents respond by disclosing their identity is the instant messaging between the children permitted.
The subject matter of the Parental Verification Application represents a big step forward in the provision of security in the IM context. However, in the methodology disclosed therein, the first child's parents need to disclose their own identify to the second child's parents, before the identity of the second child's parents has been confirmed. In other words, the first child's parents are required to disclose their identity to an unknown third party in order to confirm the identity of their child's potential IM buddy. It would be desirable to eliminate this shortcoming.